Tourists and drugs in Albania, do they go together?

 


Oct 8, 2023. Posted by  Balkan Periscope - Hellas

 

The Alps of Albania, with their natural beauty, are attracting more and more adventure tourists, but also traffickers and growers of narcotic plants.

 

Due to the mountainous terrain itself, the difficulties of the road infrastructure, depopulation, but also the difficulties of controlling the territory by the locals and the police, the Alps have turned into a favorable terrain for the cultivation of the narcotic plant cannabis sativa. 

Only during the last 5 months, through the operation "Clean Alps", developed in 18 stages with the involvement of hundreds of forces and police vehicles, 132 cases of cultivation were discovered and more than 76 thousand narcotic plants were destroyed, 9 suspected perpetrators were arrested their cultivation, as well as 11 other citizens declared wanted.

The area most affected by the cultivation of narcotic plants is that of Dukagjin, with the villages of Shalë, Shosh and Pult administrative units, where this phenomenon is also increasing the scale of criminality. 

In this area, since the end of June, three people have been killed and another injured, these crimes are suspected to be related to the phenomenon of the cultivation of narcotic plants.

In the entire Shkodra District, which includes 5 municipalities, so far 197 thousand cannabis plants and seedlings have been discovered and destroyed, this amount is about 62 percent of the narcotic plants destroyed this year in the entire territory of the country. This makes the District of Shkodra the most problematic area in terms of the cultivation of narcotic plants.

According to official data from the state police, until the beginning of September, nearly 290 thousand plants and seedlings of narcotic plants were discovered and destroyed in Albania, and 111 of their growers were arrested. 

But local sources claim that the amount of narcotic plants, cultivated this year in the territory of the country, is much greater than what the police have discovered so far. 

Sot

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